Marble Arches
by troubled.writings.x
Summary: And no matter how much he gives up, it will never be enough.


**Title: **Marble Arches

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything.

**Rating: **T

**Words:** 3,031

**Ship(s): **Nate/Blair, Nate/Serena, Blair/Chuck

**Summary: **And no matter how much he gives up, it will never be enough.

**Author's Note:** Something I cooked up because school is a bitch, but I don't expect this to be much.

–

_Left by the roadside all alone_

_I turned to speak to you right there_

_but you were gone. _

–

He ends up staying awake all night.

It's not that he can't sleep, it's because he doesn't want to. Each time Nate closes his eyes, he sees blond hair and tangled limbs, and somewhere far off a broken face of a girl he used to know.

Christ, this _sucks_, but knowing that however, doesn't make it any better.

Eventually, sleep comes as the early light makes his bare room glow pink, but it doesn't last. He wakes up less than a hour later with a headache and the sheets a mess around his lanky frame. The sound of a door opening reaches Nate's ears, and then the unmistakable sound of the shower turns on.

Without another thought, Nate jumps out of bed, the sound of pounding water dies away as he yanks open the bathroom door.

The room is empty and the shower stall is dry.

He exhales hard.

That was weird.

–

The other night, Blair shoots him pained, curious looks all through dinner with Chuck. She's so sure that Nate is up to something by constantly tailing Serena around.

Unable to stop himself, Nate smiles at her, _smug_, and not even trying to hide it.

He hates to admit it, but there might be malice behind his intentions after all.

He ignores Blair throughout the remainder of the evening.

–

After washing up in the bathroom, Nate begins eating spoonfuls of kiddie cereal in the kitchen, like he does every morning, when a wave of familiar voices lure him towards his living room.

The television is on, and pain instantly grips him around his chest like a tightly coiled vice. The screen is black and white, set to the old movie's channel, displaying _Breakfast at Tiffany's._

And what's really creepy is that Nate doesn't even remember turning his TV on.

–

There's history here, etched between himself, Chuck, Serena, and Blair. Pain and betrayal, and all the intangibles in between. These are the reasons that Nate to not want to commit to Serena, and all the reasons why he kind of does.

Serena's hand slips under the table and lands on Nate's knee, shooting a jolt of electricity towards his waist, and then up his spine.

No one comments when Blair rises to her feet, an unreadable expression on her face, glaring at her best friend and then him, before walking towards the restaurant washrooms.

–

Even though no one can accuse Nate of being fully aware of the cause and effect ripple, the tension just doesn't stop. It beats against his brain, over and over and over again, until he marches straight back into bed and buries his face into his pillows and groans until it passes.

But he can't and this time it isn't because he doesn't want to.

He pokes his head from underneath the blanket to see his bedroom door closing on it's own.

She's leaning against the wall on the far side of the bedroom, brunette curls and red lipstick and all, watching him with only a vague interest.

The smell of Chanel perfume violates his nostrils.

He's shaking and literally feels his spine turning into ice.

He meets her eyes and everything changes.

"_Blair_?"

Nate scrambles out of the sheets and slams into his bed post, and by the time he recovers and turns back to her, she's gone.

–

The caffeine wreaks havoc to his already fucked up senses. His fingers bounce on his knees, his neck is twitching with an unknown excitement.

And yet, Nate is so tired.

There's a knock and he is almost too scared to answer it, but he gets up anyway and opens the door when he hears Serena weeping through the hard wood.

She's bleary and rumpled and sheer misery is strewn across her face

Nate jumps to at once, slipping into his prescribed role like a second skin, "Serena, what's wrong?"

Her long arms wind around his neck and pulls his face down to hers, kisses him hard, empty of all the weeks of hiding and disappointment and general suckage.

Nate kisses her back, of course he does.

When he pulls back, his eyelids are still closed, and he isn't so sure why. And then he feels someone's gaze trained on the two of them behind him.

Nate snaps his eyes open.

"It's Blair," says Serena, smoothing her hair and frowning as her fingers get caught in knots. "She's...–"

But he can't hear the rest.

Beside him, Blair is laughing, laughing so hard that it should be echoing across the apartment, but the sound dies the instant it reaches his ear.

–

Nate hates it here.

He hates the bright white lights, and the doctors wearing white, while the nurses in scrubs of different hues of blue. He hates the crisp smell of antiseptic, and the smell of death cloying the air.

Nate looks over his shoulder, half expecting to see or hear a vestige of Blair behind him, but he's alone.

_Oh wait_, there's Serena over by the water fountain.

He tells himself that he's being stupid, and instead swallows the lump in his throat.

The room is small, with an assortment of machines all linked from a frail figure on the hospital bed. At the side is Chuck with his face buried in his hands.

The door behind Nate swings shut as Serena walks in; the sound startles Chuck as he looks up at him solemnly.

No one says anything.

"What happened?" Nate finally croaks, listening to the slow, almost dying rhythm of the heart monitor.

Chuck stands up, rubs his face with the sleeve of his rumpled dress shirt, and manages some speech through the fabric, "...head on collision outside Serena's apartment this morning."

Nate doesn't know what to say, doesn't know if there's anything he _can_ say.

"The doctors said they don't know how much longer she'll be around," says Serena, her hand instantly grasps his arm, though he shakes it away.

Because Blair _is_ around. She's sitting on the foot of her own bed, swinging her legs underneath her dress, and looking completely out of focus as she searches the face of the dying body in front of her.

–

He comes home, forcing a laugh from his heavy chest that comes out in distorted tears.

"Shit," hisses Nate, sinking to the living room floor, catching his reflection on the glass top of the coffee table. His eyes are red, but he hasn't really been crying.

Not yet.

"Are you okay?"

The sound of heels scraping the floorboards stop next to the kitchen entrance. Nate knows who it is, but wishes that it were anybody else.

"Not really," he calls out lamely, scowling at himself as he enters the kitchen and sees that it's empty.

Of course it's empty.

–

"You're really upset about this, aren't you?"

Blair sits across from Nate as he drops his fork onto his plate, the clattering sound of metal on ceramic leaves a a stale silence.

Yeah, he still isn't use to this.

Nate angrily runs a hand through his hair.

"You shouldn't be, I mean really, you have Serena now–"

"You say it like it's _that_ easy, Blair," he interrupts her, noticing how the headband in her hair suddenly changes from red to a bright sunflower yellow.

"You mean, it's not?" She says, twirling her forefinger around the rim of his glass, plastering it with a heavy stream of condensation.

Nate pushes his chair back and stand up abruptly. She's supposed to be in a hospital, and yet she's here, and unable to leave him the hell alone.

"Is this some kind of joke? You're supposed to be in the hospital, Blair. You're either supposed to be alive or..." he can't finish his sentence without gulping the enormous lump in his throat.

Nate is so engulfed in frustration and defeat that he doesn't know how else to go on. If this thing inside his apartment really is Blair, then it should already know how he feels.

Blair smiles faintly, and then hesitates for a moment before frowning and growing a little confused as if she doesn't know the answer.

Fuck, she _always_ supposed to have the answer.

The look on her face is so oddly human now, and the way she stands and reaches across to him is so strangely familiar that her very presence seems definitely real.

Nate shivers, closing his eyes and tries to imagine the weight of her hand on his chest. Tries to image that he can feel the warmth of her fingers radiating through his shirt. But he can't, he just feels so cold.

When he opens his eyes, she's gone.

–

"I don't want to die," she mumbles from the dark, and Nate realizes that isn't the problem. The problem is that she doesn't want to leave Chuck. It's either that, or she doesn't know how.

And this doesn't make any of it better, because Blair, well how is he going to tell himself this without... freaking out? _Blair is a ghost_, but not really, which makes things _different_.

Except for all the ways it's all exactly the same.

His phone beeps. He sits up in his bed and reaches over to turn his side table lamp on. It's Serena, texting him to see if he wants to visit Blair at the hospital and then get a late night bite to eat.

Nate looks at Blair, surprised to see that she hasn't disappeared yet to wherever moody spirits go, and suddenly feels something pricking at his eyes. Her skin is now a ghastly white, her lips are colourless, and she's looking at him as if begging him not to leave her.

He doesn't think it's that hard considering she always seems to be everywhere he is.

He texts Serena back telling her that he already ate and needs to get to sleep.

And the lies don't bother him after that.

"Goodnight, Blair."

Nate can almost feel Blair rolling her eyes at him.

And all of a sudden she's sitting next to him, and he should be able to feel her hot breath on his neck, instead he shrinks further into his blankets to avoid feeling the dropping temperature.

Nate closes his eyes and promises himself that when he opens them the next morning, things will be okay.

Then he feels nothing.

–

Nate is too exhausted to go out tonight, at least, that's what he keeps telling himself. Maybe the only reason he's spending too much time at home now is because it's the only place he can talk to Blair.

_Talk to Blair_.

It's usually a few minutes of him listening to her, although he never seems to remember what exactly their talks have been about afterwards.

But it's not like he doesn't see her outside his apartment because, oh, he does.

He'll see her on the Columbia campus, trying to redirect others' conversations, before realizing that they cannot see or hear her. She'll give him a helpless, but comprehending stare over her shoulder and then _poof_, she dissipates into thin air.

Sometimes Nate wonders why he's the only one that can see her.

–

"Hey."

"I haven't been completely and totally honest with you," says Serena, as she throws herself down on his couch, flinging her purse onto the coffee table.

Blair walks out of the kitchen, and freezes in her spot when she sees her best friend. "Tell her to get out, Nate. Tell her right now!"

"What, why?" He asks, confused.

"Because I didn't want you to look at me the way Chuck did when I told him the truth," answers Serena, not realizing that he hadn't been talking to her.

Nate stares at Blair stupidly, watching her cross her arms and pace around the living room.

"What are you looking at?" The blond questions, turning her head around.

"Huh? Oh nothing," says Nate, shoving his hands into his pockets. "So what did you want to tell me?"

Serena sighs, then takes a deep breath. "The morning of Blair's car accident when she came over to my place... we got into this really big argument."

Nate gulps. "About what?"

"You," she reveals, "She asked me what kind of friend I was for trying to be with you after... everything. And I asked her why she cared, I mean, she was, _is_, with Chuck. And then she left and well, you know what happened next."

He does know what happened next, and his head snaps up to look at Blair, but her own eyes are cast downward.

"Serena," he pauses, something erupting in the pit of his stomach, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No, why?"

Blair has left.

"Never mind."

Only Blair would get suspicious if he asked a question like that.

"You don't hate me, do you?" Serena asks eagerly, standing up and walking towards Nate at such a pace that he has to step back.

"Of course not."

"Okay, well umm I'm going to go," she mumbles, hands cupping his face and _fuck_, if he could get out of her grip and avoid her lips, Nate knows he would.

–

The apartment seems empty tonight, and something is ominously different. There is some subtle wrongness and Nate starts to unconsciously move towards the front door to ensure that it is locked.

His eyes fall to a frame hung adjacent the apartment entrance, holding a picture of him and Serena he had recently put up.

With shaking hands, Nate grabs it off the wall. In the picture they are frolicking through Central Park, something they've done throughout their childhood. Something the integrality of their relationship can be composed of.

And then, his body seizes up as he feels Blair's presence behind him. The photo slips through his rough fingers, and the glass shatters and disperses on the wooden floor.

Nate curses, carefully picking through the large shards as Blair stands and watches.

"Is there anything I can do?"

He gives her an incredulous look, pointing to the fact that she can't really pick things or perform any other simple task.

"Can I tell somebody... about you?" Nate asks hesitantly. Up to this point he hasn't dared utter Blair's existence to anyone in fear that they will think he's crazy, and in some motion or another, Nate might actually be.

Blair's eyes all on the photograph that lays underneath a mount of broken glass.

"No," she shakes her head.

"I don't love Serena," he stops and tries to maintain a fair level of eye contact.

He's above telling people what they want to hear, always has been even when it's not true. He lies as easily as he breathes many times, but when he stood on that school courtyard many years ago and told Blair how he felt about her, how he has always felt about her, Nate had meant every word.

Blair doesn't answer, just looks at him with a slight distrustful gaze that is more miserable than angry.

Heat floods his cheeks as Nate looks away in discomfort.

"I was going to tell Serena that, I swear– "

"Don't," snaps Blair, clenching her hands so tight that they appear whiter against her ghostly form, "Don't tell me you're going to do something when you won't."

"I _will,_" says Nate.

Her voice drops. It's the first sign that her emotions, which she constantly tries to keep under control, are taking over. "It doesn't really matter now, does it?"

Nate looks dumbstruck for a minute, but realizes that Blair is right. It doesn't matter at all how he feels about Serena, Blair will _never_ be able to reciprocate his evident feelings for her even if she wakes up in the hospital.

He throws out the glass and the photograph along with it, and pretends it's all fine, but inside he's burning.

–

Anyone's first assessment of stumbling their way upon Blair in her hospital room is pretty girl, bruising wounds, _tragedy_.

Nate stares at Blair's pale skin, the diminished muscles and unveiled bones, trying to picture the Blair he has talked to during the past couple of weeks.

The Blair he _knows_.

Nate doesn't quite listen to the jolts and cranks of the machines around the bed, instead he's looking at Blair's limp hand, at her numb fingers and colourless skin. Impulsively, he reaches for her hand.

He wishes he could feel a shift in her wrist, or her fingers curling, but they stay limp and near death, just like the rest of her her.

He finds himself wishing for Blair, alive or dead, to return.

Then something hits him hard.

A machine begins to produce an insistent beeping.

A doctor emerges and is urgently ushering Nate out of the room.

Black spots cloud and flare across his vision. He feels his airways constricting. The doctor is yelling at a nurse, leaning over Blair's frail body, which seems rather lifeless, but Nate just can't focus.

He wants to run, to get as far away from this place as possible, but he stays.

_He always stays._

Nate closes his eyes and hopes for the familiar flash of brown hair that never comes back.

–

And no matter how much he gives up, it will never be enough.

She's gone, and this time, she'll stay gone.

–

As Nate gets ready to leave for class one morning, a soft, warm voice rustles into his ear, "Always have, always will."

He turns around.

No one is there.

–


End file.
